Standing Committee D

[Mr. Jimmy Hood in the Chair]

Identity Cards Bill

Clause 1 - The National Identity Register

Amendment proposed [5 July]: No. 2, in page 1, line 16, leave out from beginning to end of line 4 on page 2 and insert— 
'(a) of assistance to the Secretary of State in preventing or detecting terrorist acts in the United Kingdom or elsewhere or otherwise in the interests of national security; 
(b) of assistance to the Secretary of State in preventing or detecting serious crime; 
(c) for the purposes of controlling illegal immigration and enforcing immigration controls; or 
(d) for the purpose of securing proper provision of relevant public services. 
(4A) For the purposes of subsection (4)— 
''relevant public services'' means the public provision of— 
(a) healthcare, 
(b) housing, 
(c) education, and 
(d) social benefits; 
''serious crime'' means crime giving rise to an offence triable only on indictment.'.—[Mr. Garnier.] 
Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.

Jimmy Hood: I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following amendments: No. 3, in page 1, line 17, leave out 'prevention or'.
No. 4, in page 1, line 17, after second 'of', insert 'serious'. 
No. 5, in page 2, line 3, leave out from first 'of' to end of line 4 and insert 
'establishing entitlement to a particular public service'. 
No. 43, in clause 8, page 7, line 8, leave out 'and'. 
No. 44, in page 7, line 10, at end insert 
'and 
(c) is issued for the following purposes only— 
(i) to assist the in preventing or detecting terrorist acts in the United Kingdom or elsewhere or otherwise in the interests of national security; 
(ii) to assist the Secretary of State in preventing or detecting serious crime; 
(iii) the purposes of controlling illegal immigration and enforcing immigration controls; 
(iv) the purpose of securing proper provision of the following public services, namely— 
(a) healthcare, 
(b) housing, 
(c) education, 
(d) social security benefits. 
(1A) In subsection (1)(c)(ii), ''serious crime'' has the same meaning as in section 1(1A).'. 
No. 120, in clause 43, page 37, line 23, after first 'crime', insert 
'(other than in section 1(4A))'.

Tony McNulty: Thank you, Mr. Hood. It is a pleasure to serve under your tutelage and chairmanship. I hope that you and Mr. Gale will enjoy the Committee's deliberations as much as the members of the Committee will.
I was saying in the course of clearing my throat—no more, really—when our proceedings were terminated yesterday, that the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) had done the Committee a great service by tabling the amendment, as it has prompted a good debate about the key issues in clause 1. My closing line before I was so rudely interrupted was: 
''Very often during my brief, fleeting time in this House''.—[Official Report, Standing Committee D, 5 July 2005; c. 42.]
and then Hansard inserted a dash. Let me resume from that spot: as and when I have been in Committee dealing with various bits of legislation in various roles, the constant refrain has been ''undue specificity''. There are those who seek to put specific elements in a Bill in an effort to improve and enhance the legislation, but such elements have entirely the reverse effect, hence undue specificity. 
That is the case with the amendment. I do not want to review in elaborate detail all the unduly specific elements, but if we went with the amendment rather than with what is in the Bill, we would achieve a result contradictory to what I believe the hon. and learned Gentleman seeks to achieve. 
Let us start in the first instance with 
''in the interests of national security''
in clause 1. That is deliberately vague. Much of the debate has centred around saying terrorism if one means terrorism, but ''national security'' clearly means far more than just terrorism. The clause is drawn widely because we do not want, in any way, shape or form, narrowly to define what is in the public interest in respect of national security. Of course terrorism is included, but national security involves so much more, including many of the activities that go up to the execution of a terrorist attack but are not of themselves terrorist acts.

Patrick Mercer: That was precisely the point of the amendment. In defining national security, we wanted to include the words ''terrorist acts'' in order to focus minds more carefully. We went to some length—I am sure that the Minister will remember—to try to discover what was meant by national security, with a view to adding to and reinforcing the legislation with the words in the amendment. I fail to see how the Minister can argue against that, but I am sure that he will.

Tony McNulty: I take the point, but many activities that are party to a terrorist act could not in any sense be defined as terrorism; for example, using a false identity to hire a car, house or hotel room, or creating a misleading trail through credit card payments on a false credit card. Such acts would not be covered by  the amendment either as an act of terrorism or as a serious crime
''giving rise to an offence triable only on indictment'',
which is another part of the amendment. Nevertheless, they would be elements of a terrorist act that we would need to chase down in the public interest to secure our overall goal of wider national security. 
I appreciate that the amendment refers to 
''preventing or detecting terrorist acts'',
but that is also too narrow in terms of the broader definition of national security, not least in the context of actions and activities that could be remote from the end game, the terrorist act, but that are ultimately part of it, because of what the intelligence forces or otherwise know.

Patrick Mercer: That is precisely the point. That is why we have the definition of national security. To enhance exactly that phrase, we wish to use ''terrorism'' or ''terrorist act'', or whatever it is that we included in the amendment, in order that there should be no doubt that the Bill concentrates not exclusively but carefully and particularly on an act of terrorism. It is merely a question of adding a harmless but helpful phrase to this particular provision.

Tony McNulty: It is not, because, with respect, the amendment is unduly specific. In one interpretation, it could mean that many matters deemed to be in the interests of national security, which are not part of any stage of the process of the commission or execution of a terrorist act, would remain outside the scope of public interest as defined in the Bill, precisely because they would have no direct and germane link to terrorism. The Bill must contain plenty of areas that are captured by the broader element of national security, but that are not specific to terrorism as configured in the Bill.

Patrick Mercer: Why not therefore add ''terrorism'' to the Bill? Every other act that falls short of an act of terrorism is swept up by national security. The word ''terrorism'' helps to focus on that particular point. If the two are juxtaposed, surely all eventualities are covered.

Tony McNulty: No; I am afraid that we are looking through opposite ends of the same telescope. I would argue strongly that national security at its broadest encompasses anything specifically captured by the amendment, and that the broader definition is far more relevant to a definition of the public interest and national security than a narrower definition that specifies terrorism. Terrorism is embraced by the phrase
''in the interests of national security'',
as indeed are an array of other matters that may be above and beyond terrorism, and that might—it is not for me to question unduly the drafting on this matter—not be included were we to include in the Bill 
''of assistance to the Secretary of State in the prevention or detection of a terrorist act in the United Kingdom or elsewhere or otherwise in the interests of national security''.
In the politest terms possible, that prelude to 
''in the interests of national security''
is dangerously over-specific and superfluous. We prefer the wider, catch-all phrase ''national security''.

Tobias Ellwood: From the research undertaken in preparation for the drafting of the Bill, which has led us to debate how threats of terrorism can be thwarted by the introduction of an ID card, will the Minister cite examples either in this country, or abroad where there are voluntary and compulsory requirements to carry ID cards, of how carrying an ID card has helped to prevent terrorist threats? I appreciate that that may be difficult from the point of view of national security.

Tony McNulty: I shall not, with respect, because I do not think that it is germane to the amendment. I shall, however do a deal with the hon. Gentleman. I shall treat his interventions with a good deal more respect if he stops the canard of talking about the compulsory carrying of ID cards. That is not in the Bill. I should be enormously grateful if he saved such rhetoric for outside the Room and if he focused on the Bill. I am not trying to introduce discord, but if we are serious about scrutinising the Bill, let us do so within the terms of the Bill. If the hon. Gentleman can clearly show me where it says that it will be compulsory to carry ID cards, and that we are moving towards a ''show us your papers'' society, I shall give way to him.
Mr. Ellwood rose—

Tony McNulty: I shall not give way to the hon. Gentleman, because he cannot show me that. Perhaps we can reflect for a little and return to that. The matters raised in the amendment tabled by the hon. and learned Member for Harborough are serious and germane—it is a useful entrée to a large part of our deliberations.
Many of my other comments will concern the undue specificity of 
''of assistance to the Secretary of State in preventing and detecting serious crime'',
and the fact that compounding that by mentioning 
''crime giving rise to an offence triable only on indictment''
leads to a woeful over-specificity. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael), gave us the benefit of his knowledge of the Scottish system. I think that he said that that would leave barely manslaughter and murder, and not much else.

Alistair Carmichael: Not manslaughter.

Tony McNulty: Not even manslaughter; murder, and that is it, as a serious crime triable by indictment and no more. I accept that that might be purely a drafting error, but in the context of the English legal system, it is a serious limitation on the situations in which the register could be used for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime. In England and Wales, the significant limitation will be that only the most serious offences will be triable on indictment only.
I appreciate that I am—happily—not a lawyer, and the hon. Gentleman is, so I tread on thin ground, but I am told by those far better versed in such things than I am that some of the serious crimes triable only on indictment include murder, manslaughter, grievous bodily harm, rape, aggravated burglary and death by  dangerous driving. One does not have to be a lawyer to understand that a host of other crimes, perhaps not that serious, but not captured by the phrase ''triable only on indictment'' could be important. Many aspects of what we are seeking to do on organised crime are not captured by that, because of the building block offences committed on the way to the discharge of the ultimate offence. The amendment is not appropriate in the context of what we are seeking to do in national security terms against terrorism and organised crime, although I appreciate that it is trying to be helpful rather than otherwise. 
The hon. and learned Member for Harborough then conflates the next two points. There are serious reasons why registration would be useful—not only 
''for the purposes of the enforcement of immigration controls''
but also for 
''the purposes of the enforcement of prohibitions on unauthorised working or''
unemployment—I am sorry, I mean employment. We do not have unemployment any more; at least, we have far less than we used to. The important point is that those are two distinct reasons, and it is in the public interest to have both of them in the Bill in relation to the register. The amendment conflates them into one: 
''for the purposes of controlling illegal immigration and enforcing immigration controls.''
Either it was an accident to leave out the point about illegal working or, as I suggest, it has been conflated into the point about illegal immigration and enforcing immigration controls. I am not making an obtuse point about the Conservative party's views on immigration; I am concerned that either the hon. and learned Gentleman does not think that it is in the public interest to include the point about illegal working or that much of the point is captured by subsection (4)(c) in the amendment. Either way, the absence of the original subsection (4)(d) means that both elements are absent, with the consequence that part of the intention of the Bill in terms of the public interest is lost. 
If, as I hope, we are going to talk about the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill 2005, which had its Second Reading last night, we should move away from serious discussion about the mechanics of controlling asylum—there are still problems with removals and other things—towards a more serious debate about managed migration and all that that means for illegal working, as we believe that the public interest would be best served by including those two elements. 
Equally—I make no accusation here; I am trying to be careful—illegal immigration and illegal working are not the same thing. Some people might be working illegally who have not necessarily fallen out of the system but have entered the country to work and have avoided immigration control. By that, of course, I mean the informal economy, as we call it. So we believe that we should capture in the Bill both the  illegal working dimension and the very real point about migration controls. 
Perhaps we are being churlish, but we believe that what we say about the purpose of securing the efficient and effective provision of public services is a better way of saying what we want to get across and a better way of securing proper provision of relevant public services. 
On the substantive point about paragraph (e), and about proposed paragraph (d) of the amendment, we believe that undue specificity is compounded by suggesting that ''relevant public services'' means health care, housing, education and social benefits, and that it is far too narrow a definition of public services. 
The easiest thing for me to say to the hon. and learned Gentleman would be, ''It's okay, because public services are defined in clause 43,'' but with all due apology to my Scottish and English advocates, barristers and solicitors, clause 43 returns us to gobbledegook. It all sounds very clear in clause 43(2)(a), however, which, states that references in the Act to the provision of a public service are references to: 
''the provision of any service to an individual by a public authority''.
That is not too wide. From my limited experience of making legislation in this fun factory, I would far rather start wider and get down to specificity through subsequent case law and whatever else. That is better than being over-specific in the Bill. The Committee can therefore be reassured that I understand that part of my Bill. 
Clause 43(2)(b) states: 
''the exercise or performance in relation to an individual of any power or duty of a Minister of the Crown, the Treasury or a Northern Ireland department''.
That makes some sense.

Mark Prisk: The Minister referred to clause 43(2)(a), and highlighted the fact that the Government's wish is to take the expansive position first and then perhaps narrow it down. Will he say what services he would choose to exclude from that definition?

Tony McNulty: At this stage, the Bill is saying, and I am saying, that no services will be excluded. Clause 1(4)(e) puts it simply:
''for the purpose of securing the efficient and effective provision of public services.''
The hon. Gentleman is, in effect, asking me which public services I believe can be inefficiently or ineffectively provided for. The answer is none. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman asked me what I would exclude. I would exclude none.

Jimmy Hood: Order. May I ask hon. Members to stop having conversations across the Floor? If the hon. Gentleman wants to ask a question, he should catch the Minister's eye and ask to give way.

Tony McNulty: I have been over-generous in responding to sedentary interventions, Mr. Hood, for which I apologise. It is not protocol. 
My difficulty, which I shall explore afterwards with officials, is with clause 43(2)(c), which says: 
''the doing by any other person of anything in relation to an individual which that other person is authorised or required to do for purposes connected with the carrying out of any function conferred by or under an enactment''.
I think that I know what that means, but if the Committee agrees to lay aside the amendment, I shall double check what it means. I believe that it simply means public provision under particular laws and Acts of this place. 
I have even more difficulty with the legalese, and I have not had time since yesterday to clarify it in my mind. Clause 43(2)(d) states: 
''the provision of any service to an individual under arrangements made (directly or indirectly) between the person providing the service and the public authority who, for purposes connected with the carrying out of a function so conferred on that authority, bears the whole or a part of the expense of providing the service to that individual''.
I think that I follow that, but I shall clarify what it means in respect of public service before returning to clause 1 in all its glory. 
Clause 43(2)(e) states: 
''treating an individual as having complied with a requirement imposed on him by or under any enactment.''
It is right and proper, in the context of the effective and efficient provision of public services, that those matters are drawn that broadly. Anyone in the Room who has worked in local councils or in central Government, and anyone with an interest in public policy generally, will understand that simply listing health care, housing, education and social benefits is not a sufficiently definitive or expansive list of the public services that we require to be efficiently and effectively provided. It is the process of providing those public services efficiently and effectively that is important, rather than talking about specifics—except for the minor point that I raised earlier about it being social security benefits rather than social benefits.

Mark Prisk: The Minister has helped me to refine what I was trying to reach for; perhaps he can guide me. It may be more helpful to those following our deliberations if he could clarify what is meant by a public authority for these purposes. He will appreciate that many organisations are public authorities, and it would be useful in this context if he defined it before we continue our deliberations.

Tony McNulty: It means anyone charged with providing public services. That is certainly what it means in paragraphs (c) and (d) when it deals with those other than public bodies. Clause 43(1) states:
'' 'public authority' has the same meaning as in section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998''.
The hon. Gentleman will find that extremely clarifying.

Edward Garnier: The Minister does not need to spend too much time on the definition of a public authority; we may deal with that later. He will know, because he is familiar with the Human Rights Act, that a public authority is defined by what it does, not by what it is. Many companies that appear to be private enterprises become public  authorities for the purposes of carrying out particular functions. Perhaps the Minister will return to the subject of the debate and the amendment.

Tony McNulty: That was an unnecessarily harsh admonition to the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Prisk), who asked for the definition. The hon. and learned Member for Harborough has given us a far clearer idea—that is why he is a man of law—of what I was struggling to say; it is about the discharge of public services rather than public sector bodies.
I repeat that our debate on the amendment has been a useful exercise. Without unduly repeating myself, we must not restrict the public interest test, which is what would happen if we accepted the amendments. It is essential that the prevention of crime remains one of the statutory purposes of the scheme. It is essential to draw it as widely as possible, not least because, as we will see later, much of that which is permitted in the rest of the Bill comes back to the statutory purposes and the definition of public interest in clause 1. 
We are not debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin; it is a real debate about the public interest. There are set tests on the public interest, and permissions later in the Bill rely on them. In that context, this has been a useful debate. I congratulate the hon. and learned Gentleman on initiating the debate, but for all those reasons, not least the point about undue specificity, I ask him as humbly as I can to withdraw the amendment.

Edward Garnier: I am delighted by the kindness with which the Minister has approached our meagre efforts to tease out the Government's intentions with the legislation. Having listened to him, I am no clearer now than I was at the beginning of our deliberations about what the clause is about or for, and what the Government intend by it.
I regret that the only two arguments—in fact, the same argument using different words—that the Minister has attempted to raise against us is that our proposed amendment is over-prescriptive or unduly specific. Certainly, Mr. Hood—I interrupt my comments to welcome you to the Committee—such charges could not be laid against the Bill, which is riddled with vagueness. It provides the Secretary of State with 60 separate powers to make regulations, which we have not seen; they may be in draft form in some secret cupboard in the Home Office, but we certainly have not seen them in the House of Commons or this Committee. So, I resist with such fortitude as I can muster the charge of being over-prescriptive or over-specific. 
Committee members need to be clear, when discussing amendments, what we are here for. What is the purpose of Parliament and Members of Parliament? It is to protect the rights and freedoms of the citizens of this country and to uphold the rule of law. I fear that the Minister's arguments against the amendment do nothing to instil confidence in me that the Government are interested in the rights and freedoms of the British citizen or in the rule of law. When considering the clause, one has only to ask what the Government are about to become confused or  alarmed. How are the statutory purposes for which the national identity register is to be established to be enhanced or advanced by the Minister's arguments? How will national security and the prevention or detection of crime be furthered? How will the enforcement of immigration controls and of prohibitions on unauthorised working or employment be furthered, or the provision of efficient and effective public services? 
I am grateful to the Minister for doing what he can to explain what subsection (4) is about and why it would not be improved by our proposed amendment. I regret that nothing that he or the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Kali Mountford) said, and nothing in any of the interventions made yesterday, has persuaded me that the Government fully understand the dangerous nature of the Bill, which is wrongly called the Identity Cards Bill and should properly be called the national identity register Bill or the collection of private data for dissemination within Government Bill. 
The Bill is designed to print across our foreheads a human barcode. Those who do not wish to understand the seriousness of what the Bill represents in terms of the change in the culture and society in which we live are failing in their duties as representatives of the public. 
While I cannot entirely bring the Liberal Democrat party with me in support of the amendment, I want at least to register my party's concern by inviting the Committee to express its opinion on it. 
Question put, That the amendment be made:—
The Committee divided: Ayes 5, Noes 10.

Question accordingly negatived.

Alistair Carmichael: I beg to move amendment No. 123, in clause 1, page 2, line 6, at end insert
'and 
(b) an address at which he can be contacted.'

Jimmy Hood: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:
No. 124, in clause 1, page 2, line 7, leave out paragraphs (b) to (i). 
No. 6, in clause 1, page 2, line 8, leave out 'and elsewhere'. 
No. 7, in clause 1, page 2, line 10, leave out paragraph (d). 
No. 142, in clause 1, page 2, line 13, leave out paragraph (f). 
No. 8, in clause 1, page 2, line 14, leave out paragraph (g). 
No. 9, in clause 1, page 2, line 14, after 'numbers', insert 
'recordable under paragraph 4(1) of Schedule 1'. 
No. 10, in clause 1, page 2, line 18, at end insert— 
'but ''registrable facts'' shall not include criminal convictions or cautions or medical records.'. 
No. 27, in schedule 1, page 40, line 13, leave out sub-paragraph (g).

Alistair Carmichael: May I add my words of welcome to you, Mr. Hood? I also offer an apology to the Committee for my inability to remain for the entirety of yesterday's proceedings. I am fortunate in that you can confirm that I had business elsewhere in the House at one o'clock yesterday afternoon, because I had the pleasure of your chairing the relevant proceedings.
We are discussing the third group of amendments. This is the Committee's second sitting and it is already almost a cliché to say that the amendment strikes at the heart of the Bill. I have never been one to resist a cliché, however, and it is fair to say that this amendment genuinely strikes at the heart of the Bill. 
The hon. and learned Member for Harborough said that this was not an Identity Cards Bill, but an identity registration Bill. To that extent, I broadly agree with him. This is an enabling measure, and the compilation of the national identity database is at the heart of the Bill. We contend that the nature and extent of the information that is to be held by the Government on that database goes well beyond that which is necessary for an identity register. 
Taken at its simplest, identity is constituted by one's personal, physical being. That is why biometric information is clearly appropriate and relevant information to have in the compilation of the identity database. Going beyond that means moving from factors such as one's biometrics, which are, by and large, unalterable, into things that are alterable. Some alterable information will have to be held in the database, because something will clearly have to be done to tie biometrics to individuals. One's name, for example, is an alterable fact, but it is clearly desirable that one's name should be entered into the database. One's date of birth is not, strictly speaking, alterable, but it is occasionally the case that people will not know what their date of birth is. A number of people whose date of birth has been incorrectly entered will simply adopt a wrong date of birth. Such cases are rare, but they are by no means unknown. 
For that reason, there has to be a certain element of information that would be considered alterable. Nevertheless, it is my view, as expressed in the amendment, that the information held in the database as it is currently constituted goes well beyond what is necessary for the compilation of a database of identities. 
The first item on which I want to focus the Committee's attention is addresses. We see the inclusion of an address on the database as problematic. We can think of a lot of people, for example, who have more than one address. I am one of them, and I suspect that just about everyone serving on the Committee has more than one address. For my part, because of the nature of my constituency, I have three addresses. How is that going to be dealt with in the terms of the database? What about people who are of no fixed abode? What about people such as students, for example, who have more than one address and who often change their address with significant frequency? How are such matters going to be dealt with? 
That is why we suggest that instead of registering where someone resides in the United Kingdom, there would be an address at which they can be contacted. That seems consistent with the purposes of the Bill, but there is no real need for the database to include where a person actually resides. For the purposes of the Government and the national identity register, as outlined in clause 1, it is sufficient for the database to include an address where a person can be contacted, rather than necessarily an address where they actually reside. In making that change, the difficulties created by multiple addresses or lack of address will be solved. 
There are a number of aspects of the facts that are to be registered that go beyond one's identity and create a picture of somebody's life history. For example, one can see how residential status, which is dealt with in subsection (5)(e), might be included under general purposes, but previously held residential statuses go well beyond the question of identity and get into the creation of a life history. We have severe concerns about information about numbers allocated for identification purposes, and about the documents to which they relate. 
Will the Minister explain a little more what the Government's thinking is? I can think of a number of numbers that are attached to me by the Government, such as my national insurance and national health numbers. The inclusion of documents relating to those numbers or to information about them seems significantly to widen the scope of the database. I can well understand why we would not necessarily want information relating to documents that stem from our national insurance number, national health number or other numbers held by Departments—perhaps even a crime reference number—to be readily available on the database. 
Will the Minister give us data clarification on that point? Will such matters relate to benefits, national insurance, the national health service, the Criminal Records Bureau, the sexual offenders register and housing applications? I can imagine the myriad of information that could be included on the register. At present, the drafting of the provision is particularly wide and loose.

Edward Garnier: The hon. Gentleman's amendment deals with residents and an address at which they can be contacted. What does he understand by the expression ''residential status''? Is that a term of art  in landlord and tenant law or does it arise only from the context of the Bill?

Alistair Carmichael: As one who practised in the criminal courts, I hesitate to say what is or is not a term of art under property law. I had assumed that the term related to the person's status under immigration law, for example. However, perhaps the Minister has the answer.

Tony McNulty: Subsection (7) sets out the meaning of ''residential status'', so therein might lie the answer.

Alistair Carmichael: I am grateful to the Minister for that answer. I had assumed correctly, because I read the whole clause earlier. None the less, why is it necessary to include previous residential status as part of a person's identity under the clause? In what way would that define identity?
If the Government are about establishing a person's identity, much of the information under paragraphs (b) to (i) of subsection (5) is at least superfluous and possibly open to abuse. It facilitates the function creep to which we referred yesterday. It is on that basis that we tabled the amendment. I shall welcome the Minister's clarification of the Government's position.

Patrick Mercer: I wish to speak to amendments Nos. 6, 7 and 27, after which I shall speak to amendments Nos. 8, 9 and 10. Before I do so, however, I wish to say to you, Mr. Hood, that you are not one of the old sweats in the Room who sat through discussions on the Bill previously for what seemed like many weeks, although it was just many days. We missed you. We wish you well and I am glad that you are back with us now. We look forward to your chairmanship, and I am pleased to see you looking in such fine fettle.
I hope that amendments Nos. 6 and 7 are clear. If amendment No. 6 were accepted, the words ''and elsewhere'' would be struck out from the phrase 
''where he has previously resided in the United Kingdom''
Amendment No. 7 would delete subsection (5)(d), which states: 
''the times at which he was resident at different places in the United Kingdom or elsewhere'',
as the corollary to subsection (5)(c). Similarly, amendment No. 27 would affect schedule 1, but I shall not bore members of the Committee with the details of what that means. 
It strikes me that the Government are giving themselves the enormous logistical and bureaucratic task of trying to find out where every individual in the country has previously resided, both in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. Let me offer two examples, one of which is to do with my dear father, God bless him, who died recently; had he not died, he would have reached 86. The other example is to do with me. I imagine that my father would have been asked to register himself, and that in due course, if he had lived long enough, he would have been given an identity card, once he had paid for it. However, it would have been testing the credibility of the Government to ask my poor father, with his failing memory and ill health, precisely where he had lived during his life. 
How on earth would that have been defined? I am sure that my father would have remembered that he had been a theological student in Nottinghamshire for a while. But what would have been the best place for him to register as his address for the next six years? The western desert? A wadi in Italy? The back of a Bren gun carrier in Iraq? What would his address have been then? For six years, he went all over the world. He had no residence. At one stage or another he might even have had a slit trench as his address. Would it have been reasonable to ask a man of that age to tell us where his addresses were? Would it not be more reasonable if we were to strike out the phrase ''and elsewhere'' after the reference to the UK? 
Let me now offer the example of my previous residences. For the past 30-odd years, I have lived all over the place. For instance, I lived for nine months in Gaddafi barracks in Jinja, Uganda. I am not sure whether that would have been a useful address to give. Where else would I have given? Between 1975 and 1992, I could have given a series of addresses in bombed-out police barracks in Northern Ireland. For six months, I lived in Golf Two Zero. What was Golf Two Zero? It was a tower on Drummackaval on the south Armagh border. Do the Government really want to know those details? Are they really relevant? 
I ask the Government to think carefully about the phrase 
''in the United Kingdom and elsewhere''.
Are we not making things very difficult if I have to register facts such as that, in 1996, I lived in Camp Sherwood in Banja Luka? At one stage, I lived in the pig factory just outside Šipovo. Do the Government want to know that? I do not think so. 
How far back are we going to go? For the elderly, will we go back into the realms of history? Also, how precise do the Government want us to be about dates? I cannot remember when I was in those places, and my dad certainly cannot remember when he was in Wadi Caracetto just outside Anzio. He cannot remember that now because he is dead, but he would not have been able to do so even when he was alive. 
As the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland mentioned, what will people with second homes be required to do? What about Travellers? There is a large travelling community in my constituency. We have upwards of 1,000 Travellers in and around the Newark area. I do not know how many addresses they have, but I know for a fact that they are only temporarily resident in the caravans on Tolney lane.

David Borrow: I would be grateful if the hon. Gentleman cast his mind back to the problem that faced previous Conservative Governments in trying to decide where a person's residence was for the purpose of paying the poll tax. The law at that time was able to define where a person's main residence was. The definition of a residence was clear in the relevant legislation, and I am sure that this Bill will deal with that problem as well.

Patrick Mercer: If the hon. Gentleman casts his mind back, he will remember that that policy was not one of our most notable successes. It was a problem at that time, and I hope that we have learned from our mistakes. However, I suspect that if this legislation is passed without amendment, the Government will face the same difficulty.
How many addresses will gap-year students have? Where will they be registered for the months when they are travelling abroad or in other parts of the UK? What about those—many of them are my former comrades—who live rough on the streets? They do not seem to have an address. Will they be required to go on to the register? Will they be required to have an identity card? What address will the Government expect them to provide for where they lay their heads? 
I want to look again at something rather more tangible. In 2003–04, I am told that there were 2,630,000 household moves. If the Bill is to be a success, are we not therefore imposing upon ourselves the most enormous bureaucratic problem? How much will it cost people to reregister each and every time, as I believe they will be required to do? How much will it cost them when they say, ''I've just got married and I've changed my name. Not only that, but I have moved into a new home''? Will such a woman or man be required to buy a new identity card and to pay for the alteration on both the national identity register and on the card? I will be grateful if the Minister made that clear.

Mark Prisk: I was somewhat surprised to learn that in my constituency the turnover of households is somewhere between 10 and 15 per cent. a year. To consider the question of some of the bigger cities, is my hon. Friend aware that in places such as central London, turnover is about 30 to 35 per cent. per annum? Does he share my concern that that will represent a significant issue, in addition to the actual numbers involved, which he has already mentioned?

Patrick Mercer: As always, I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his perspicacity. I have no doubt that what goes on in his constituency is mirrored throughout the country. For instance, my constituency has seen an unnatural increase in the building of new houses. People are not just moving there briefly; a lot of those houses are starter homes, which people move into before moving into more substantial property. Will the Minister explain how sensible he thinks that this comment is? Can he not see that this straightforward, simple and easy amendment would make the working of the Bill, and therefore the Act, much simpler? I hope that he will give that some serious thought.
Amendments Nos. 8, 9 and 10 have already been addressed in some detail by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland, but I want to add to what he said. Amendments Nos. 8 and 9 would remove the ability to hold registrable numbers as shown in paragraph 4 of schedule 1. I would be grateful if the Minister explained why all the personal reference numbers from 4(1)(a) to (m), which I forbear to read out for obvious reasons, apply, and they must all be included the Bill to complement the information that is already being received. 
Finally, amendment No. 10 would simply insert these words: 
'' 'registrable facts' shall not include criminal convictions or cautions or medical records.'
I note that the precise wording of the Bill suggests that people may wish to have such information included in the Bill and in the national identity register. I want the Minister's assurance that those three categories—criminal convictions, cautions and medical records—will not be included in the information required under the schedule. 
 The amendments are simple and straightforward, and they will have a huge cost benefit. I do not seek to be obstructive; I am trying to improve the Bill, and I ask the Minister to consider them carefully. I know that he will do so, as he is a fair-minded man.

Nick Palmer: I shall be brief, as I do not want to take up the Opposition's time on the amendments. On amendment No. 124, which was tabled by the Liberal Democrats, the proposed removal of paragraph (h) would make it impossible for individuals to find out who has been asking for information about them. The removal of paragraph (i) would make it illegal for individuals to request that information be placed on the database.

Tim Farron: I shall deal with that point in due course. I, too, do not intend to take up too much of the Committee's time.
We are told that we are dealing with enabling legislation; as a consequence, surely the paragraphs that we seek to remove are unnecessary. As my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland said, function creep is built into the Bill by paragraphs (c) to (i). We seek to help the Government. They are addressing the reduction in public support for identity cards and the attendant register, which appears to be due to a fear on two counts. First, there are concerns about function creep and what might happen next; secondly, people are concerned that costs will spiral out of control. The removal of those paragraphs would allow the Government to dispel the fears that their intentions for the scheme are the nefarious ones that some suspect they might be. 
A proliferation of registrable facts also increases the likelihood that individuals will be required to change those facts. Besides a person's identity and where they may be contacted, all the other pieces of information are, quite properly, subject to change. If that happens, regular updates will be necessary—probably annually for many people—which will cost money. I have a copy of the London School of Economics report that the Government have rubbished, which says that rapidly rising cost correlates with the number of registrable facts and the opportunities for people to change their data. If we cut down the data, we will cut the costs and perhaps stop the haemorrhage of support. We seek merely to be helpful by seeking to remove extraneous registrable facts. 
The Government occasionally express injured incredulity when we suggest that some of the purposes to which the ID cards scheme may be put could be anything other than positive. I am equally  incredulous that they can see no way in which the scheme can be abused. Obviously, Parliament cannot bind its successors. I gently teased Conservative Members yesterday that they might have found the legislation extremely useful during the miners' strike and the attempts to make people pay the poll tax. 
Indeed, the Conservatives might have found the legislation useful in the cold war, when some members of the now governing party may have been members of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, protesting outside various missile bases. That information would, of course, have been scrubbed from those individuals' personal databases, but nonetheless, they might have been involved. I am quite sure that Lady Thatcher's Government would have used such a database to great effect and would have been grateful to any previous Labour Government who had established it. It is naive of the Government to think that, however fluffy, cuddly and pro-civil rights they are, a successor Government might not think that the legislation was wonderful and rub their hands with glee. 
My hon. Friend has made the case for the amendment well. Without going into further detail, I point out that paragraphs (g) and (h) enable the state to create almost a map of people's lives, as was mentioned, and introduce the risk that information properly held on the database will be linked with information held elsewhere. A wider concern is that various branches of the public and private sector might, quite sensibly—and perhaps quite innocently—seek to use the ID card number as a single identifier. 
That is a way into a wider and deeper form of single identification—a point that I raised in an intervention yesterday. We could get to the stage at which the importance of that single identifier and its value as a prize for those with criminal intent grows, at which the effort, intellect and resources put in by people with criminal intent will be that much more concentrated and at which, once a person has their identity stolen, it will be much more damaging. 
To answer the question posed earlier, I do not particularly want a right to have information stored on me centrally. I am quite capable of retaining in my own head, or on my personal databases, any information that I may wish to be reminded of about my life, where I have been and where I might go. We would not be damaging people's civil liberties too much if we prevent them from telling the Government things that the Government do not need to know.

Ben Wallace: I welcome you to the Committee, Mr. Hood, and introduce myself as a new boy.
I want to build on the point made my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) about the extra information being brought into the register. I shall argue from a technical point of view. Currently, it is envisaged that the iris scan—one of the pieces of biometric information—might involve a folder size of about 20 kilobytes per individual. That is the biometric data alone. Every time we add a bit more information, we add to the cost of the system and create problems for its future. A bigger file of data  will mean more and more additions to the national computer infrastructure and more and more problems for technical providers to solve. That is quite important. If 20 kilobytes will be used purely for the iris scan—not for any other information, such as previous addresses, whether there be 70 or 10 of them—we are already talking about 960 million kilobytes. We could call them megabytes or gigabytes, and go on and on. That is an important technical point that will have an impact on the delivery of the register. 
The Government are making a rod for their own back by adding more and more entries. We know from experiences of delivering IT systems of such size that the more entries that are made, the more data that are stored, and the more occasions that there are to go back to those data and edit, adjust and update them, the more likely it is that there will be problems and human error and that the system will be made vulnerable. If the Government are determined to deliver this register, those points should be taken on board because in 20 or 10 years' time—as these problems build, as people live longer and as they are more mobile, which they certainly are nowadays—I fear that those issues will come back to haunt them. 
The Government should be careful how long the list gets. They are creating a rod for their own back by asking for previous residences and residences elsewhere. The Government's ability to validate where somebody lived in Azerbaijan, for example, and to validate documents in the case of some countries is almost nil, either because the records do not exist or because we do not have the diplomatic relations to enable that. That is why I support amendments Nos. 7 and 8, which would ensure that the register is more workable. I hope that the Government take on board that constructive criticism.

Edward Garnier: I want briefly to support what has been said by my hon. Friends and the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland. I have a query for the Government and I wonder whether they can help me. We have a number of concerns about subsection (5), on registrable facts in relation to an individual. Paragraph (a) refers to ''his identity''. I understand that there will be people who have different identities—different names—during the course of their lives. To some extent, that is dealt with in paragraph 1(b) of schedule 1, which refers to
''other names by which he is or has been known''.
That would take account of people who get married or divorced, people who are given life peerages or inherit a peerage, or people such as Elton John or Cliff Richard who use a stage name or other name that is not their birth name. I can cope with that.

Tony McNulty: Purely for accuracy, I should point out that Reg Dwight uses a stage name; Elton John is a fictitious name.

Edward Garnier: We could have an interesting discussion about the concept of identity and the philosophy behind how people identify themselves. I would imagine that Sir Elton Hercules John does not  think that that name is a fiction. He is hugely convinced that the person whom he looks at in the shaving mirror every morning is Elton Hercules John. I am not sure that the Minister's intervention helps me understand any better the Government's policy behind the Bill.
Paragraph (h) of clause 1(5) relates to a point made a moment ago by my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Wallace). The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) touched on this too. Paragraph (h) mentions 
''information about occasions on which information recorded about him in the Register has been provided to any person''.
That does not seem to refer to information provided by the data subject. It could mean access made to the register by a third party—a Government agency, the police, the security services or Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, for example—and information supplied to another Government agency. That could also mean, if the British-Irish common travel area is to have any meaning in future, information passed by the British Government to the Irish Government. That might be a registerable fact, but not one that the data subject would necessarily know about. 
I need assurance that, if the fact is registerable, our constituents who are the objects of such information transfer should know about it. I do not want information stored about me to be shifted around some Government system without my knowledge. Unless the Government can assure us that that will not happen, we have cause for concern. That, briefly, is our concern— 
Sitting suspended for a Division in the House. 
On resuming—

Edward Garnier: I was drawing my remarks to a close when the Division bell rang. Having returned from the vote, I shall sit down.

Tony McNulty: May I, without confusing the Committee, start at the end and work my way back to the beginning? The hon. and learned Member for Harborough raised a specific question about clause 1(5)(h) which I should like to deal with first. He wished to know whether he could know about the occasions on which information recorded about him had been provided to any person. The answer to that lies not in the Bill, but in the Data Protection Act 1998, and I should like to dwell briefly on the relationship between the Bill and that Act.
First, nothing in the Bill is incompatible with the provisions of that Act or the EC directive which it implements, and nor do any provisions exclude the application of the Act where it is relevant to the Bill. The Government's policy is that the Act should apply to the operation of the scheme and the register, as it does in relation to other Government databases. In particular, the Secretary of State's duties as a data controller under the Data Protection Act will apply. That includes the duty to process data fairly and to ensure that it is accurate and is kept for only as long as necessary. The rights of data subjects are not excluded  in any way by the Bill. We have always made it clear that subject access requests under section 7 of the Data Protection Act will be available. Anyone will be able to apply for a copy of the information relating to them on the register. There are no special exclusions under the Bill and the only exemptions are those that apply under the Data Protection Act in relation to national security and the prevention and detection of crime.

Edward Garnier: That is helpful, but the Minister may remember that on Second Reading I intervened on the Home Secretary to ask him whether there would be a charge, as there is under the data protection system, for the individual to gain access to his entry in the relevant register. The Home Secretary omitted to answer that question, but I am sure that the Minister has thought about it since and, as we are dealing with the subject, I should be grateful if he could help me with that.

Tony McNulty: I know that under the existing provisions of the DPA there is scope for a small charge to be levied to cover the costs of providing that data. I believe—unless I am told otherwise, the hon. and learned Gentleman should take me at my word—that such a small charge will prevail, as is normal in the context of the DPA.
Mr. Carmichael rose—
Patrick Mercer rose—

Tony McNulty: I shall give way to the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland and then to the hon. Member for Newark. If I receive subsequent inspiration, I will relay it to the hon. and learned Gentleman.

Alistair Carmichael: We await the Minister's inspiration with interest. Can he tell me—this will deal with the point made by the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer)—whether subsection (5)(h) adds anything to the entitlement that an individual already has under the Data Protection Act?

Tony McNulty: It does in the sense that there is no data about the number of times someone has sought verification of an individual's identity through the database unless we record every time someone does that. Paragraph (h) creates that data and says, ''Here is a series of data about how many times third parties have sought to verify an individual's identity.'' That is what it means in terms of being a building block.
Before I finish the point about the DPA, I will give way to the hon. Member for Newark.

Patrick Mercer: At the risk of being pedantic, can the Minister tell me what the small charge is under the Data Protection Act and whether it is likely to be the same under Bill?

Tony McNulty: I cannot at the moment, but today—if those who are far more knowledgeable that I are able to do so—or tomorrow I will get an array of the exact charges for assorted Government databases. Apparently, in addition to subject access requests, there will be ID card scheme internet subject data requests, dah de dah de dah. Internet subject data requests for individuals will be free. The DPA charge is currently £10 and that should be the charge under the Bill.

Edward Garnier: I am sure that when we think about the matter a little more, it might be better if ''dah de dah de dah'' were put into writing so that we could read what the Minister was thinking.
Paragraph (h) states: 
''information about occasions on which information recorded about him in the Register has been provided to any person''.
We should be clear about the meaning of ''provided to''. Does it mean when a third party gets into the database by some other means, or does it mean every time an identity card is scanned through a reader? Does it mean when accessed or at the provision of information?

Tony McNulty: Let me repeat that there is nothing in the Bill that provides for information held on the database to be passed on to third parties. There is nothing in the Bill that allows access to the database. I assume that we are simply referring to the verification process. Paragraph (h) refers to cases where someone has asked to verify an individual's identity, rather than where data is provided in any shape or form directly from the database.
We must also remember, because it is important in the context of our deliberations on the amendments, that there are two elements relating to the database. There is the front end, which relates to the verification of an individual's identification, and there are a whole host of other items of data stored, but not available for verification in the first instance. Those data relate to the establishment of the identity of an individual in connection with the front end data. 
Some charge that one can look through schedule 1 and add up 51 separate pieces of information all of which are on the database—that is correct—but go on to say that all of that information is available to those who seek to verify someone's data, which is not correct. Many items of those data are the building blocks that establish what is necessary at the front end of the database to secure an individual's data.

Tobias Ellwood: I seek clarification on the following point. When an individual pays £10 to find out the full extent or array of information that is on the database, will that include all the information about the nature of the occasions when the databases have to be looked at by other organisations?

Tony McNulty: Absolutely. That is why we need paragraph (h) to build up the database that explains how many times people have sought to verify the information. Under the Data Protection Act, those data will be held in a Government database on an individual and will be fully part of the individual's access to the data stored in the database. I repeat that we need paragraph (h) to build up that data in the first place. If we are not recording when anyone seeks to verify an individual's identity through paragraph (h), the data will not be there for people to capture.

Ben Wallace: The exceptions that the Minister talks about under the Data Protection Act show that the individual will have access except when the agencies involved are the security services or the Serious Organised Crime Agency. Is that correct?

Tony McNulty: I hesitate to say that that is correct because in the note I have it says ''e.g.'' rather than ''i.e.'' Not least because of the unnecessarily barbed comment from the hon. and learned Member for Harborough, I shall turn this note, which I am happy to read into the record because of the important way in which the matter relates to the Data Protection Act, into a fuller note that I will circulate to the Committee, including the points about internet access, the £10 amount and everything else. I shall just finish dealing with the points about data protection because they are germane to all the amendments.
The normal rights of data subjects to be notified that information is held about them, or has been altered, will also apply. If there is a dispute about the accuracy of information on the register, the normal procedure will be for the individual concerned to inform the Secretary of State of the error. Clearly, that is how it stands under law. There will not be a queue of people at the Home Secretary's door saying, ''Oi, there's an error in my database.'' In this case, ''Secretary of State'' simply means people acting for the Secretary of State. If the matter cannot be resolved by agreement, the data subject has the right to apply for rectification through the civil courts under section 14 of the Data Protection Act. Inaccuracies or refusal to correct information would also be matters that the national identity scheme commissioner would want to investigate and report to the Secretary of State. As hon. Members will know, all of the commissioner's report must be laid before Parliament. 
The powers of the Information Commissioner—including, should it be necessary, the power to issue enforcement notices—will apply to the database just as they do to other Government databases. The Data Protection Act provides a comprehensive set of duties, rights and powers, all of which apply to the Bill. There are no special exemptions and there is no attempt to exclude the normal duties of government as a data controller, the normal rights of the citizen as a data subject, or the rights of the Information Commissioner to oversee compliance with data protection principles. That goes to the heart of much that is contained in the amendments and I will turn it into a fuller note for the Committee. 
I gently chide the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland, who has picked up the telescope that the hon. Member for Newark had and is looking through the wrong end. Rather than simply registering who I am, or where I am now, as all the elements of my identity, at least some background information verifying my recent history should be part of my identity too. Although I understand why, in the interests of civil liberty, regarding intrusion and such matters, there is concern about limiting the stored data, that would make the database generally, and the individual's ID specifically, less secure rather than more so, not least because of the points made about mobility. If all that is down in the national registration database about me as an individual is a contact number, that is not the sum of who I am as an individual. 
The point about people who own two, three, four or five homes is that under law, as I understand it, for a  range of purposes an individual has to identify a principal residence; we Members in the House have to do so. That is in order and is captured by the Bill. 
An interesting and fair point was raised. We went through assorted wadis in Libya and Italy and, although I am not sure how wonderful they look from up a high tower, the glens of south Armagh are particularly beautiful countryside, and it is not least because of the sorts of work that the hon. Gentleman carried out that they are far more pleasant now than they were when he was halfway up his tower. Crossmaglen and the Burren are particularly well known to me and I enjoy them very much—far more now than I did previously. 
The point about previous addresses is that it is about a limited footprint, not life history as people are suggesting. I will come to the substance of a limited life history of individuals, especially in respect of addresses, in a moment, but those are part of identity. It is not just about where we are now and where we may get to; those elements enhance the data and add security to our entire identity.

Edward Garnier: Subsection (5) sets out the registrable facts, which are further explained by schedule 1. Will the Minister explain something? Many things may not appear as registrable facts, because the schedule is written in permissive, rather than mandatory language. For example, the expression,
''The following may be recorded'',
is found in most of the subsections. Presumably, it would be possible—unless the Minister tells us otherwise—for none of the information in subsection (5) to be recorded in the database.

Tony McNulty: I will return to the broader point towards the end of my remarks. I do not accept the thrust of what the hon. Gentleman says, not least because much of my time in Committees has turned into wonderful ''Call My Bluff''-type word games around permissive versus prescriptive and ''may'' versus ''shall'' or ''might''.
More often than not legislation is—not least for the reasons of undue specificity about which I talked earlier—written in permissive terms rather than otherwise. However, the most important point is that, except for the provisions about additions, which we will come to, this is the definitive list of things that are permitted to be in the database, up to and including all the elements here. How and in what form each item is recorded is a matter for further debate and, as the hon. Gentleman keeps saying, a range of regulatory and other powers. That is what I want to come to now. I will go to Newark first.

Patrick Mercer: The Minister will always be welcome to come to Newark, as he knows. In view of his point about all the bodies and the rest of it, just how far back does he expect this to have to go?

Tony McNulty: That was my next point exactly. The UK Passport Service has already carried out a personal identification project which has included enforced checks on the identity of passport applicants, partly as a prelude to the implementation—not roll-out—of biometric  passports. It needs to start that process. There is nothing new, as in the Financial Times ''shock horror'' splash three or four weeks ago that 4 million people would be interviewed for passports next year. That has been around ever since we determined that we would take that route.
 In order to prove the certainty of an individual's identity, previous addresses for the past six years have been requested. The checks to be made on applicants for identity cards will follow this pattern as surely as the implementation of the ID card scheme follows and builds on the introduction of a second generation of biometric passports. There may be an occasion where earlier information on an address will be sought—for example, if an applicant for an ID card has lived abroad but has an early address history in London, or that individual's identity is not sufficiently clear from the history of five or six years. 
The Committee will agree that that recent history, rather than life history, is an important part of an individual's identity. The proposal to ask for address history for six years is not on the face of the Bill. It will be contained in the application form which will be prescribed in regulations under clause 5(1). That is one of the elements of the Christmas tree of statutory instruments and regulations. Six years is the proposed policy, building on what UKPS is already doing, rather than a legal limitation. 
We need to reserve the right, which is why it is not specific on the face of the Bill, to go back a bit further if that is required to substantiate an individual's identity. If someone has lived in this country for a long time, gone away for five years and is just back and needs to look for their card, there are footprints of an individual's ID in his address history. That is why we need to go that way. Back to the wadi in Italy.

Patrick Mercer: I would be delighted to take the Minister to a wadi in Italy if he is interested, but perhaps more importantly and without wishing to be too specific, this matter is of great interest to me in the Newark constituency. Would the Minister expand on the Travellers' cases that I outlined earlier?

Tony McNulty: Clearly, we will need to outline a clear policy for people with a transient lifestyle, those such as the hon. Gentleman's dear departed father who are not in a fit state to determine their recent history, those who simply cannot remember where they have been for the last five or six years and other vulnerable groups. There cannot be universality in how we capture the information and all those areas will need to be explored in detail, not least because of the discrimination legislation. That is perfectly right and proper.
But as ever, we legislate for the general and go down to the specific in policy terms as and when we need to. Those are entirely fair points that we need to take on board. It is not a charge that I resile from at all. This is not, as some have suggested, a substandard Bill. It is, and is entirely meant to be, enabling legislation. The elements and details mentioned are fair points and we need to take them on board in detail. 
 Amendments Nos. 123, 124 and 142 would lessen the efficacy and the security of the individual's identity that is necessary on the database. Let us consider the statutory purposes and the other elements that we have just discussed. We should accept that in terms of illegal working, immigration controls and those elements, it is important to establish someone's residency status as part of their identity. By that, we do not mean two up, two down, semi-detached, bungalow or whatever else. As the Bill indicates, we mean their residency status under immigration law. That is a fair piece of information to include. 
 By the by, serious concerns were raised on Second Reading about the racial and ethnic dimension in terms of vulnerable groups. Without reading out my other little ditty on race relations and race discrimination legislation and how the Bill fits in with those—although I would happily provide it for the Committee—I want to make it clear that we will have to be alive to those concerns as increasingly detailed deliberations of the project arise. Again, a fair point is raised. At one end of the issue is biometrics and how it works for assorted racial and ethnic groups. It runs all the way through to what the Bill does not do. It does not somehow reinvent the vagrancy legislation, the sus laws, stop and search and all the other canards that are thrown at it. Within those two parameters there are real concerns about ethnicity, on which we need to elaborate. 
In terms of controls on illegal working and immigration controls, the points made in the amendments relating to dropping the residential status provision are not well made. Holding one contact address lessens the substantive depth and security of the Bill. I want to make a couple more points and then I will happily sit down. 
We are asked whether clause 1(5)(g) could allow police national computer numbers and national health service numbers and the records to which they relate to be added to the list in schedule 1. That was an entirely fair question. We have repeatedly made it clear that there is no intention to add criminal or medical records to the register. Paragraph (g) is about numbers issued to people for identification purposes and information about the documents to which those numbers relate, such as the number and expiry dates of passports or related immigration documents. It does not provide power to add all the records held about a person just because they might include a number. 
The next issue is worthy of greater explanation. The only people who will have access to PNC records are properly authorised persons, such as police officers. People working on the administration of the ID card scheme will not have such access. As I understand it, unless the entire database was run by, and for, the police service, with everyone having due access and clearance for access to the PNC, it does not follow that capturing a PNC number allows access to the record. 
 By the bye, I want to explore one point further, and perhaps return to it later in our deliberations. It might be the one about which the hon. and learned Member for Harborough was getting agitated. It is simply this:  the existence of a PNC number for an individual implies a criminal record. If the PNC number is recorded in the public domain in the sense of the verification process, one does not have access to the substance about a criminal record and the offences that a person has committed. In such circumstances, people who perhaps should not could have access to the fact that someone has a PNC number and therefore a record. It does not follow that even if someone captures the PNC number on the verifiable end of the database, it allows them to unlock the door and see what is on a person's record. The existence of the PNC implies that there is a record. I need to consider that in more detail and will come back to the Committee.

Edward Garnier: Access by officials or police officers to the register is clearly going to be an area in which there will be great public concern about the invasion of people's privacy and private lives. In the current regime, which I am sure that the Government support, if the police want, in certain circumstances, to invade my house, they have to get a search warrant from a court. Does the Minister not think that the same philosophy should apply to coming not into my house but into my private space in so far as it is an electronic representation of my private space?

Tony McNulty: Again, the police, like other public bodies, even though there is that exemption under the DPA, need to substantiate why they would want to go through somebody's record in detail. They are allowed to, but not on a fishing expedition. The form of that is elaborated on later in the Bill—in clauses 19 to 23, I am told, as if by magic. There are safeguards not only against state agencies, for want of a better phrase, going fishing in the database but against misbehaviour and abuse of the database by those who manage the system. As we shall see, there are stringent sanctions and other safeguards against anyone hacking into, breaking into, misusing or abusing the database. That is entirely right and proper. We can come on to the filters provided by the later clauses of the Bill in more substance when we need to.
It was also mentioned that clause 1(5)(g) would allow a person's national health service number to be added to the schedule by affirmative order, although there is no immediate intention to do so. Information about a document to which a number relates does not stretch to include medical records. If the Committee needs more information on that, I shall try to provide it. I shall reconsider the wording of clause 1(5)(g) to ensure that it is absolutely clear that it does not permit criminal or medical records to be added. If I need to, I shall come back to the Committee on that. The important point to note, without repeating the points that I have already made on the amendments, is that the areas of the Bill to which the amendment refers are part of the interlocking set of filters. Those filters start with registrable facts, go through, as we discussed, the five reasons of substance behind the Bill and the creation of the database, and go on to the two key statutory purposes of the Bill. We need to see those all interlocking. There cannot be changes or additions to  schedule 1 unless they stand up to the test of both those filters, the five and the two as outlined in schedule 1.

Edward Garnier: I am grateful to the Minister for his answer on clauses 19 to 23, but if he reads them, he will see that they do not provide any reassurance to citizens at all. They provide powers to the Secretary of State to interfere in our private lives through his officers and agents if he thinks it appropriate. We must consider that more carefully in due course—perhaps not this evening. If the Government are to persuade the public, let alone us, that the Bill will not damage the relationship between the citizen and the state, it is essential that he should not, without thinking about the matter a little more, rely on the clauses to which he has just referred in the way that he has. I am sure that he did not do that on purpose.

Tony McNulty: As and when we get to discussions on clauses 19 to 23, if the Committee feels that the filters that are there, such as those on the police, are not strong enough and need to be reconsidered or tweaked, that is something that we can discuss. Those elements and other safeguards throughout the Bill are about precisely the general, serious and sincere points that the hon. and learned Gentleman makes about the integrity and security of the database and the relationship between individuals, the data held on them and what those data are used for. I have tried to dwell not on what I could suggest are the more substantive amendments—that would be unkind—but the lead amendment. Many of the others simply follow on.
For the reasons that I have outlined, I would ask that the amendment be withdrawn. I am sure that one of my officials has taken note of the rather liberal and generous additions to the information that I have agreed to provide to the Committee. Perhaps we should no longer hold Committee sittings within hours of London getting information of such enormous import about the Olympic bid; it has clearly put me in far too good a mood.

Alistair Carmichael: I knew that there had to be a reason for that agreement, and the Minister gave it away at the end of his speech. We have had a good debate about the matter, which strikes at the heart of the Bill. We could have had a debate about the nature of identity, but thankfully we were spared one. Hon. Members made some good points about addresses and names, to which we should return, as they bear further scrutiny. When I was listening to the hon. Member for Newark, I thought, ''Here I am. Everybody knows me as Alistair Carmichael.'' In fact, on my birth certificate, I am Alexander Morrison Carmichael, Alistair being the Gaelic version of Alexander. My own son is also Alexander, but he is called Sandy. There are a number of people in that position, and I can see a number of difficulties arising from it.
The point that the Minister made about addresses is right. However, somebody with a second address may be asked, ''Why are you here?'' in relation to that second address, and if that information were included on the database it would be clear to the person making the inquiry that it was reasonable and legitimate for the other person to be there. 
As my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale has already said in relation to paragraph (i), we have managed to survive without that right so far. I shall be 40 in two weeks' time, and I am happy to continue to survive without it. 
The point about the information being accessed under paragraph (h) is more substantial. Additional rights exist under the Data Protection Act, and information is accessible with the payment of a fee. I am not entirely convinced by the Minister's argument that there is a requirement to include paragraph (h) to maintain that information about the occasions on which access can be made. I shall think about that point and return to it at a later stage. 
We have had some interesting discussions about how reference numbers held by the Government can be used. I hope that the Government and the Minister's officials will consider that carefully. For those who know, a particular number will mean an awful lot more just because it starts with a certain sequence of digits. A policeman looking at a reference number will say, ''That is a number that relates to a serious sexual offence, or to a serious fraud investigation,'' or information like that. 
There is still some merit in pursuing those points. Contributions have been mercifully brief and to the point. The discussions are gaining momentum, and with that in view, rather than kill the momentum by calling for a Division, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. 
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Patrick Mercer: I beg to move amendment No. 11, in clause 1, page 2, line 22, leave out from 'birth' to third 'and'.
The amendment is very simple, and I hope that our discussion can therefore be brief. Subsection (6)(d) concerns references to an individual's identity including 
''his date and place of birth and, if he has died, the date of his death''.
I hope that as a result of the amendment, we will be able to strike out the phrase 
''and if he has died, the date of his death''.
The point came up on 20 December when we had our first opportunity to discuss the Bill in the House. The way in which the phrase is framed suggests that the individual is required to notify the Government not only of the date and place of his birth but of the date and place of his death. That might seem whimsical; perhaps it is, but it is an aberration that needs to be cleared up, and this simple amendment seeks to do that. 
If we are talking about the piping days of peace, that is something that is relatively easily sorted out. I trust that the Minister will be able to dismiss the matter easily or give a satisfactory answer as to why he does not intend to accept the amendment, and I would ask him, when he considers the point, to bear in mind the fact that in the past few years we have witnessed catastrophic numbers of deaths. Not only was there the 11 September disaster, but more recently the  tsunami killed tens of thousands in a matter of hours. When disaster strikes on a grand and ghastly scale, where does the responsibility lie for alerting the authorities to the fact of a death? In the aftermath of such catastrophes, society will be staggering enough already as it tries to recover. If we are unfortunate enough to have legislation such as this, a register such as this, and powers such as these, the last thing we will need is a requirement to verify the time, date and place of a death.

Edward Garnier: The problem is worse than that. In the case of the tsunami, in which lots of people died over the course of five or ten hours, some bodies have not yet been found, and we face the problem of the presumption of death. To take another example, the widow and son of Lord Lucan had to take out court proceedings to have him declared dead. The lives of the living go into a state of paralysis pending the fulfilment of the presumption of death. We need to be clear about who has the obligation to notify the register of the date of death, and about whether that date is the date of the presumed death after seven years, or some date during those seven years.

Patrick Mercer: My hon. and learned Friend makes a good point; indeed, he anticipates the one that I was going to make.

Edward Garnier: I apologise.

Patrick Mercer: Not at all; my hon. Friend made it much more articulately than I ever could—[Hon. Members: ''Hear, hear.'']. I am glad that the Minister, for once, agrees with me.
On top of that, there are other aspects to the problem. It is a lamentable fact that bodies decompose very quickly, particularly in circumstances involving heat, explosion and waves. Where does the presumption of death lie in relatively primitive areas, in which assessments of bodies cannot be made accurately? What if people are in a third- world country when they are subject to an act of terrorism or a natural disaster, and their bodies become difficult to identify? I absolutely take the points that my hon. and learned Friend made. 
I scratch my head on this point, but the Minister will also be aware that any number of people have decided that it would be to their advantage to thought dead. It is estimated that some 28 people chose to pretend to be dead after the 11 September tragedy. Although it is yet to be discovered, I have no doubt that some people fell into that category after the tsunami. 
Clearly we are dealing with difficult issues. Heavens above, the Minister is only human—despite what many people say. He does not yet know the answer to many of those questions, and it would be unreasonable of me to expect hard and fast answers now. None the less, our small but important amendment would not only assist in identification of the dead, but relieve society and the families of those who die intestate from a burden.

Alistair Carmichael: This is an interesting little amendment. The question to be asked is: how will the Government obtain the information on death? Will  it be provided by the registrar for a locality? Everything else will rely on the provision of information by the individuals who are subject to registration, but we are talking about a piece of information that cannot be thus provided.
On the point that the hon. and learned Member for Harborough made about presumption of death, my recollection is that one cannot raise an action for declarator until the expiry of a period of seven years, under the Presumption of Death (Scotland) Act 1977, which will mean that in some cases there will difficulties in ascertaining the information. What provision have the Government made in anticipation of that difficulty?

Tobias Ellwood: Leading on from that point and the issue of identifying bodies in terrorist attacks, I had personal experience of the Bali bombing, where identification of bodies was very difficult. That raises a lot of questions about the usefulness of identity cards. Dental records would have been useful in dealing with bodies in that situation, and it is a shame that the Government do not seem to have considered that. Including that information on the identity card would have helped after the atrocities not only in Bali but on 9/11, and after other events. Because of the state of the bodies in those incidents, an identity card with that information would have helped with identification. In some cases there was a delay of three to four months when bodies could not be identified.
I echo what other hon. Members have said about identification when someone dies. Who is responsible, especially when someone dies abroad? In the case of the Bali attacks, there was a big debate because there was no process of agreeing who was to determine death. Was it the Indonesian authorities or the British embassy? What needed to be signed when the death certificates were provided? The debate was a minefield and caused concern for the families affected. 
I was also involved in the aftermath of the tsunami, helping in Phuket. Many of the bodies washed up were completely unrecognisable. It is not worth going into the detail, but water has a horrible effect on bodies, making them unrecognisable, just as a fire in a terrorist attack does. In that context, the attribution of deaths, and deciding who is to make that judgment and then put the information on to the register, involve important questions that need to be answered.

Tony McNulty: Is everyone done?

Edward Garnier: On a point of order, Mr. Hood. A little bird tells me that we may not have the opportunity to debate clause stand part. I do not know whether that is true, but I would be grateful if you helped me on that question, as it might inform my decision on whether to speak more fully to the amendment.

Jimmy Hood: I am always delighted to guide and help right hon. and hon. Members. I think that the clause has been significantly debated under the amendments, so I do not intend to have a stand part debate.

Edward Garnier: I do not question your decision, Mr. Hood, but it would be of some use to debate clause stand part, as clause 1 is essentially the guts of the Bill.

Jimmy Hood: Order. The hon. and learned Gentleman sought my view, which I helpfully gave. I hope that he does not intend to question any ruling of which I give the Committee earlier notice.

Edward Garnier: No, Mr. Hood; I carefully phrased my response to your answer. I made a suggestion and you made a decision, and I made a suggestion about your decision. It is up to you to make a ruling, and I certainly do not question the probity of your ruling.
I shall say a little about amendment No. 11, which was moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Newark. As a result of the setting up of the register, we are going to see a change in the relationship not only between the state and the citizen—the living citizen—but between the state and the dead. In some senses it is utterly absurd; in other senses it is utterly tragic, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood) can so sadly testify. 
Before we move on to other clauses and get swept up in the collegiate feeling that always emerges in Committee, we need to be aware of the huge changes that will come about in how we and our fellow citizens live our lives, and the relationship that we have with the state as a consequence of the passing into law even of clause 1, let alone the remainder of the Bill. There is plenty more to be said about other aspects of the Bill, which we will come to in due course, but in my submission—I trust that others will agree, whether or not they are members of the Committee—it should not be thought that by virtue of discussing the lead amendments to clause 1, we have given adequate thought to the massive changes that will affect us all as a consequence of that clause coming into effect.

Tony McNulty: I would say, by the by, that I regard that last contribution as entirely unnecessary, and probably not worthy of the hon. and learned Gentleman.

Edward Garnier: What aspect?

Tony McNulty: All of it. You will appreciate, Mr. Hood, that I am talking to myself rather than engaging in conversation with those speaking from a sedentary position.
 On the face of it—again, this is legalese—we are asking dead people duly to notify us of their death. By implication, I guess that it would be handy if they could possibly toddle down to the nearest police station and surrender their ID cards before they die. That, however, is not the import of the clause. 
Notwithstanding what was said by the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East and others, it would be ideal if we could absolutely, positively and 100 per cent. close down the data file of everyone whom we knew was no longer with us. Otherwise, the integrity of the entire database would be affected. In a passing flight of fancy, my officials have noted that this will stop a ''The Day of the Jackal'' scenario. If we accept the point about the database, it must make sense that we should, as far as possible, close down the files of those who have died, sadly or otherwise.

Ben Wallace: Will the Minister give way?

Tony McNulty: In a moment, I might.
To close such files must make sense for the integrity of the database. Notwithstanding the tragedies outlined by assorted Members, those suggestions are not possible. Regarding the legal issues raised by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland—something-or-other Carmichael, but that is his business—there are other legal elements in Scottish and English law that need to prevail. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman should not worry; we will tell him in the end what his name is. Those legal dimensions clearly prevail too, and are not affected by the database. 
Here are some bits of the jigsaw to help this process. Under clause 13, there is provision for anyone with someone else's ID card duly to surrender it. That may help. We will get to a stage at which the automatic registration of deaths will be reflected in the database. But, for the reasons suggested, the database will not be comprehensive in terms of identification, tragedies, death in far-flung places, in non-partisan terms the Lord Lucan-Stonehouse dimension—there, I have thrown one of each into the mix. 
I do not suggest that the database can be comprehensive, but it makes sense as far as possible to record people's deaths, to close down their IDs and to flag the records so that those IDs cannot be used by third parties. We do not think that other people will be able to use such IDs, given the biometrics and everything else, but that may be possible; it is that ''may'' that is important.

Ben Wallace: The Minister begins and ends with the ''The Day of the Jackal'' scenario, in which someone uses the ID of a dead infant by using a concurrent birth certificate to apply for a passport on a false basis. The Minister will know that the ID card scheme will not apply to those under 16, so the loophole exploited in ''The Day of the Jackal''—using the identities of dead infants—would not be protected.

Tony McNulty: Well done, and ra ra ra for the Freddie Forsyth expert. ''The Day of the Jackal'' is clearly a shorthand descriptor for the use of another person's identity to create a false ID. Of course I am aware that the database applies only to over-16s. We are in our second sitting only, but that wins the prize for the most obtuse intervention thus far. It was not a literal comparison with one of Forsyth's rather second-rate—but better than Jeffrey Archer's—novels.

Edward Garnier: Can the Minister help with this question? We are already under an obligation, if we are looking after the estate of a deceased relative, to notify the registrar of births, deaths and marriages of their death. Will the measure impose an additional obligation? Is it merely a repetition or duplication, or does it supplant the existing obligation?

Tony McNulty: The establishment of an individual's death as a registrable fact does not impose a burden on the individual in the terms that the hon. and learned Gentleman suggests, because after the automatic registration of a death, the registrar will pass that information to those in charge of the database. As I  said, in ideal circumstances we would close down every record as people died, but that is not possible for the reasons suggested by several hon. Gentlemen in their interventions, and I do not pretend that it is, but we need to do that as much as we can.
The legislation does not impose a duty on people to inform the database of an individual's demise. Clause 13 is about people surrendering the cards of third parties or family members that they have in their possession. It does not impose an additional duty, nor, in all practicality, could we.

Alistair Carmichael: I think that we are making progress. Cases where the registration of data is not possible arise often in my constituency. For example, a crewman might be swept off a fishing boat. The death is generally put on the register after the local sheriff has held a fatal accident inquiry and there has been a determination of the date, time and place of death. In the intervening period—often up to a year—that information would be required, for the integrity of the register, to be placed on the database. However, there is no power under the Bill to provide information about a pending fatal accident inquiry.

Tony McNulty: Let me deal with that point. I will consider whether the registrable fact that we desire—on whatever legal definition: notification to the registrar or whatever else—is the death. Because it seems logical to me that if we are shutting down a file because of someone's demise, it does not matter much whether the person died in May or November of this year or that year; the important thing is that there is, legally, a record of that individual's death. I shall explore the matter further and, if necessary, I shall come back to the Committee. I have no problem with the notion that death needs to be a registrable fact—which is all that the clause will do—to close as many extant files as possible when the individual is no longer alive, but whether it is the death that needs to be recorded, having duly been recorded under law in the usual way, or the date of it, is a reasonable matter that I should examine.
None the less, the notion that a record of the death or the date of death—as much information in the context that I suggested—needs to be a registrable fact to allow for a good deal of integrity of the database cannot be challenged. Let us remember, too, that that individual's biometrics and other elements will be on the record and if someone tries subsequently to undertake the loosely applied ''The Day of the Jackal'' example, there are ways in which to prevent such action. It is not only a matter of paper, but of biometrics. 
Several hon. Members rose—

Tony McNulty: I am keen to wind down my remarks, but I shall give way one more time to Bournemouth and then Harborough.

Tobias Ellwood: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. Much of the Bill is about tackling terrorism, but there is another side to that, which is helping those victims who have been affected by terrorism. Some of the debate has headed in that direction. My worry is that the stipulation about the death under the clause, without more detail, will  hinder those who have been affected by terrorism—or by disasters such as the tsunami, whereby we cannot quickly and succinctly determine death or close the important file because it has such a label of death. When there is a loss in a family it is an important period for people because they have to deal with the estate and so on. I should hate to see more grief caused to the family because of delays in obtaining the label or closing the extra file. That is my main worry. Will the Minister please consider such matters to ensure that that angle is covered?

Tony McNulty: The Bill does not create an impending duty or a new duty that insists that, on the demise or the apparent demise of an individual, notification has to be made. It is not there. As I said, I shall happily consider the argument about the date, but I do not understand how putting the death on the record, given that the death is recorded in due course by the family, can cause them grief when they are going through the process of the appropriate registration of the death and the registrar passing that particular detail to the database. I would accept the hon. Gentleman's point about undue pressure if that were the case, but such action would not put undue pressure on people at a time of particular trauma. It will not be a matter of the little ID card inspector popping round and saying, ''Oi, you haven't notified us of that death'', nor is it intended to be.

Edward Garnier: I want to clarify a point made by the Minister a moment ago. Did I understand him correctly? Did he say that the local authority registrar of deaths would automatically access the database to inform it of the death of a citizen?

Tony McNulty: I am with the hon. and learned Gentleman in spirit, but not on the words that he used. The registrar would not access the database, but inform in normal fashion—once the system was up and running—about deaths that needed to be added to particular records. The registrar would not have access to the database.
Perhaps I am being sensitive about the use of the word ''access'' in this debate. The referral for the purposes of the registration of deaths will be automatic. In that context, and with the caveat that I have sounded about the date of death rather than just the fact of death—I shall come back to that issue later—I ask that the amendment be withdrawn. I also ask, rather cheekily, that clause 1 stand part of the Bill.

Patrick Mercer: I am grateful to the Minister for his comments, and I shall make mine very brief. I know that Labour Committee members want to get away to celebrate London's success and that of my noble Friend Lord Coe, who has achieved and delivered a huge success for the whole nation. That is a wonderful thing.

Tony McNulty: He is the only Tory to deliver in 10 years.

Patrick Mercer: I shall try to ignore that sedentary intervention from the Minister.

Jimmy Hood: Order. The Chairman also ignored the comment, although I hope that it does not occur again.

Patrick Mercer: Thank you, Mr. Hood; I am grateful for your guidance on that point.
A lot of points have come out of what I thought and hoped would be a matter for only brief discussion. The Minister made some extremely useful points and, as I said in my opening statement, I understand that those particular questions will not yet have matured. The Minister made that point very fairly. 
Some interventions were extremely moving. My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East brings a degree of personal experience that—mercifully perhaps—not many other hon. Members share. I am grateful to him for shedding that light and to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough for his perspicacious points. 
However, it was interesting that the Minister's mask slipped slightly during the discussions. The normally silken phrases of the senior common room gave way at one stage to the truly authoritarian nature of new Labour. The Minister said, ''We'll tell you what your name is''. Perhaps that was half in jest, but it worries me that that is precisely the sentiment that underpins both the register and the card.

Tony McNulty: Is that the best the hon. Gentleman can do?

Patrick Mercer: Probably. Despite that reservation, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. 
Motion made, and Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill:—
The Committee divided: Ayes 10, Noes 6.

Question accordingly agreed to. 
Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill. 
Further consideration adjourned.—[Joan Ryan.] 
Adjourned accordingly at Seven o'clock till Thursday 7 July at quarter-past Nine o'clock.